PHILADELPHIA - A UNIVERSITY of Pennsylvania student who organised an exhibit about the previously unknown history of Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania is among this year's winners of Rhodes Scholarships.

Ms Abigail P. Seldin, of Tierra Verde, Florida, put together the exhibit, Fulfilling a Prophecy: The Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania, which opened at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in September.

She is one of 32 men and women from across the United States to win the prestigious scholarships for study at England's Oxford University. The winners' names were announced Sunday.

Ms Seldin, a Penn anthropology student, said she admired the survival of cultural traditions despite the difficulty involved in maintaining them in secret.

Among the other Rhodes winners is a college football star, Florida State University safety Mr Myron Rolle, who had to miss part of Saturday's game against Maryland because he was being interviewed for the scholarship. Mr Rolle is a pre-med student and hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

'It was a very exciting day, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to study at Oxford,' Rolle said after arriving in College Park, Maryland, to play in the second half of the game.

Another winner is Mr Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a 2007 University of Michigan graduate now studying in the university's joint medical-Ph.D. programme in medicine and public health. He has also been active in student groups including the Muslim Students' Association.

Mr El-Sayed was singled out for praise by former President Bill Clinton last year when they both spoke at the university's commencement ceremonies.

Mr Clinton said his example was a good lesson for whose who mistakenly think 'that we are fated to have a clash of civilisations and cannot reach across the religious divides.'

This year's Rhodes Scholars were picked from 769 applicants endorsed by 207 colleges and universities nationwide.

The scholarships, the oldest of the international study awards available to American students, provide two or three years of study.

The students will enter Oxford University in England next October.

Ms Anna Yermakova, a Northwestern University biochemistry major, plans to use her scholarship to complete a doctorate in mathematical biology.

She spoke little English when she and her family moved to the Chicago area from Russia in 1997. She recalled that when she first applied for the Rhodes scholarship, 'I didn't really understand how big of a deal it was.'

'I never really had this 'I must prove myself as a Russian immigrant' attitude,' she said.

'It was just working hard and doing everything that my brain can do and my hands can do, and I still have a lot of work to do - this is just a step.'

Rhodes winner Malorie Snider, a senior at Harvard, said she plans to study medical anthropology at Oxford, delving into an interest that has been growing during her undergraduate studies.

Winning the scholarship, she said on Sunday while visiting family in Texas, is 'kind of a blur, actually. It's a combination of excitement, feeling overwhelmed, not comprehending what's going on, and thinking about all these possibilities that have suddenly opened up to me.' -- AP